A working description of the practice as it serves clients in Pune, with notes on methodology, refusals, scheduling, and the intellectual lineage that underwrites the work.
Author
Acharya Saumya
Practice
Trikaala (est. 2024)
Published
May 2026
The city · the practicePhotograph · Anuj Yadav
Abstract
Trikaala is a contemplative tarot practice that treats the seventy-eight-card deck as a structured scaffold for self-inquiry rather than as a divinatory instrument. For Pune clients, the practice operates primarily online via video sessions, with quarterly in-person residencies. This monograph describes the working methodology (five-step protocol), the constitutive refusals (no prediction, no remedies, no upsell), and the intellectual lineage (Western tarot tradition; Indian atma-vichara) that constitutes the practice as a teachable, examinable discipline.
§ 1
Introduction.
Pune occupies a distinct place in the Indian intellectual map. The city has housed the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute since 1917, the Deccan College Postgraduate and Research Institute since 1821, FTII since 1960, and a half-dozen universities and research centres whose scholarly output has shaped the modern Indian humanities. A serious contemplative practice presents itself differently in such a city than it does in a city without that scholarly infrastructure.
The Antardarshan Method is intentionally written and taught as a discipline, with a stable five-step protocol, an examinable curriculum at the academy, a published methodology document, and a set of public refusals that constrain what the practice will and will not undertake. This shape is what allows the method to translate to a city like Pune without compromise.
§ 2
Methodology.
A session in the Antardarshan Method follows a five-step protocol. (i) The written question: the seeker prepares one sentence in advance, in the first person, naming what is actually being asked. (ii) The chosen spread: the reader selects a spread appropriate to the question. (iii) The laying and the description: the cards are laid in silence and described as iconography before any interpretation. (iv) The dialogic interpretation: the conversation belongs to the client; the reader asks the precise next question. (v) The reflection brief: a three-to-five-sentence written reflection sent by email within forty-eight hours.
The protocol is invariant across session formats (Single Question, Full Reading, Deep Dive, Year-Ahead, Membership). What varies is the spread, the time available, and the consequent depth of the interpretive step.
§ 3
Refusals (constitutive).
The practice is constituted as much by what it refuses as by what it offers. The full list is documented at /ethics; in brief: no prediction of external events, no third-party readings (i.e. readings about absent persons), no medical / legal / financial advice substitution, no remedial services (talismans, rituals, follow-up packages priced to manufacture continuity), no marketing-by-urgency, no urgency tactics, no reading without explicit informed consent.
The refusals are the structural guarantee of the method. A reader who does not refuse predictively-framed readings cannot teach the contemplative frame; a reader who upsells remedies cannot maintain the agency-not-fate principle.
§ 4
Lineage.
Two intellectual lineages converge in the method. The Western tarot tradition: A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910); Rachel Pollack, Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom (1980); Mary K. Greer, 21 Ways to Read a Tarot Card (2006). The Indian contemplative tradition: Patanjali, Yoga Sutras; Adi Shankaracharya, Vivekachudamani; Ramana Maharshi, dialogues collected as Be As You Are (ed. David Godman, 1985); Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That (1973).
The full bibliography and the reasoning behind the conjunction is set out at /about/lineage.
§ 5
Pune scheduling.
Online sessions for Pune clients are available year-round via Cal.com video. Booking horizon: three to six weeks. Same-week walk-ins are not offered as a matter of practice.
In-person residencies are scheduled quarterly, typically March, June, September, December, at a private consulting space in Koregaon Park. Dates are announced to the new moon dispatch list two months in advance and the slots fill quickly.
§ 6
Booking.
All session formats are bookable at /readings. For in-person residency announcements, subscribe to the new moon dispatch. For direct enquiries, WhatsApp +91 70453 63689 or write to hello@trikaala.com. Replies within two working days.
References (selected)
1. Waite, A. E. The Pictorial Key to the Tarot. London: William Rider & Son, 1910.
2. Pollack, R. Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom. Aquarian Press, 1980 (vol. 1); 1983 (vol. 2).
3. Greer, M. K. 21 Ways to Read a Tarot Card. Llewellyn Publications, 2006.
4. Godman, D. (ed.). Be As You Are: The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi. Penguin, 1985.
5. Bryant, E. F. (trans.). The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. North Point Press, 2009.
Pune is the city that, in our working observation, sits closest to the working register of the practice. The clients who arrive from Pune tend to come from professional backgrounds with strong traditions of inward attention — academics from FLAME, Symbiosis, Pune University, and the older Deccan College, professionals from the Maharashtrian industrial families, IT senior professionals from Magarpatta and Hinjewadi, and a significant community of working artists, writers, and contemplative practitioners. The kind of question that arrives most readily is the question about *how to organise the working life around the inward life*, rather than the question about external performance metrics.
Pune is also the city where the practice’s most-frequent clients live. Several of the practice’s long-term clients are in Pune; the residency cadence is correspondingly more frequent than in other cities.
The quarterly Koregaon Park residency.
Four times a year — typically February, May, August, and November — the practice runs a three-to-four-day in-person residency at a private consulting space in Koregaon Park / Kalyaninagar. Eight to twelve sessions are conducted across each residency. The quarterly cadence reflects both the strength of the Pune client base and the city’s established contemplative ecosystem (the Osho International Meditation Resort, the older traditional contemplative communities, the longer-running yoga and Vipassana centres) that makes the working frame easily legible.
Announcements go out to the new moon dispatch list six weeks in advance for each residency; the August and November residencies fill fastest because they coincide with key contemplative windows of the year. Subscribers are encouraged to book promptly.
On the broader contemplative ecosystem.
Pune’s contemplative ecosystem is one of the densest in India. The Osho legacy, the older traditional teachers, the Iyengar Institute, the Vipassana centres, several senior Sufi teachers in the broader region — the city has a critical mass of serious contemplative work happening continuously. The Trikaala practice positions itself as one resource among many; we send clients to the other traditions when their inquiry is better-served elsewhere, and we receive referrals from senior practitioners in adjacent traditions when their clients have specific tarot-shaped questions. The ecosystem benefits all of us; we are not in competition with our colleagues.
What we will not do for Pune clients.
We do not advise on Vipassana retreats, meditation practice progression, or yoga teacher decisions. We do not advise on Osho-tradition questions. We refer to specific senior practitioners in those traditions when asked. We also do not offer tarot training to clients already in a serious training programme with another teacher — the disciplines do not combine well within a single training period.
Frequently asked, Pune-specific.
*Is the residency open to Mumbai clients who can travel?* Yes — many Mumbai clients book the Pune residency because the dates suit them better than the Mumbai residency dates. Travel is the client’s logistics.
*Do you do readings in Marathi?* Sessions are conducted in English or Hindi. We do not currently offer Marathi sessions.
*Is there a discount for Pune-resident clients?* No — the fees are the same regardless of city.
*Can I attend the Foundation academy from Pune?* Yes — the Foundation course is online and is open to students anywhere. Pune has a substantial Foundation alumni base.
A composite, the neighbourhood, the cultural ground.
A composite worked example.
A representative Pune session, composite. The seeker is a senior product manager at a domestic technology company, mid-thirties, married, no children yet, a long-running personal practice of Vipassana that has been intensifying over the last two years. The booking note: “I am clear about the inward work. I am not clear about how it relates to the working life I am still building.”
The Trikaala Trinity is laid. Past / memory — the Page of Pentacles, the apprentice mind the seeker has carried since the start of the technology career. Present / attention — the Knight of Wands, the campaign-energy she is still deploying in her work, increasingly at odds with the inward register the practice has developed. Future / intention — the Queen of Cups, the integrated relational mastery that becomes available if the two registers are reconciled rather than held in tension.
The reading does not advise leaving technology or doubling down on Vipassana. It names the structural tension and offers a working framework for sitting with it. The seeker writes eight months later. She has not left her role; she has reduced her hours to four days, taken a substantial cut, used the freed time for a substantial deepening of her Vipassana practice. She reports being, for the first time in her career, doing both registers well rather than one register adequately.
The neighbourhood, in practical detail.
The Koregaon Park / Kalyaninagar residency venue is a private consulting space, the precise address shared with confirmed bookings. Koregaon Park, in particular, has a long association with contemplative practice — the Osho International Meditation Resort is a fifteen-minute walk from the typical residency venue. The neighbourhood is unusually well-suited to the residency’s working register.
Pune residency sessions sometimes include a long walk through Koregaon Park as part of the closing — the post-session integration walk is a Pune-specific informal protocol that has emerged from the local geography.
The cultural ground the city brings.
Pune’s contemplative ecosystem is one of the densest in India per capita. The Osho legacy, the Iyengar Institute, several senior Vipassana teachers, the older traditional teachers in the broader Maharashtra contemplative circuit — the city has a critical mass of serious work happening continuously. The Trikaala practice positions itself as one resource among many in this ecosystem; we receive referrals from senior practitioners in adjacent traditions, and we send clients to those traditions when their inquiry is better-served elsewhere.
Pune clients are, on average, the most comfortable cohort with the practice’s long-form formats. The 90-minute Deep Dive is the most-booked format in Pune; the year-ahead reading is also unusually popular. The reason is straightforward — Pune clients have time for inward work and are willing to give the session the duration it asks for.
Closing.
For Pune clients the practice is structured around online sessions plus quarterly residency. /readings handles online bookings; the new moon dispatch list announces each residency about six weeks in advance.
